Moves to replace ANCYL’s president and others
PRESSURE is piling up on the ANC Youth League top brass to convene an elective conference to replace the organisation’s president, Collen Maine, among others.
Yesterday ANC Youth League secretary-general Njabulo Nzuza lambasted league structures, using social media to put pressure on the league’s national executive to release a date for an elective conference.
“This thing is not decided over Facebook posts; we are going to call a conference because we have no intention of overstaying our welcome,” Nzuza said.
Nzuza’s comments follow desperate pleas for a congress date to elect new leadership before the 2019 election campaign begins.
The term of office of the current crop of leaders expires in September, but an NEC decision was taken to bring the conference forward to June.
The youth league leadership contest is a three-horse race between Mokako, KwaZulu-Natal youth league secretarygeneral Thanduxolo and current treasurer-general Reggie Nkabinde.
“We are already in the processes of preparing for the congress. Once we have set all the time lines and they have been adopted by the NEC, they will be communicated,” he said.
ANCYL spokesperson Mlondi Mkhize said political preparations were ongoing as regional congresses sat over the weekend, with some regions having completed audits, while the general meetings of some branches were continuing.
But one of the contenders to lead the league, Ndumiso Mokako, who is also an NEC member, has hit out at some structures for excessive gate-keeping and sidelining those who held different views.
Mokako also criticised the organisation’s leadership, accusing it of abandoning youth issues.
“The league is no longer a platform for dealing with youth issues; young people in the ANC have been reduced to defending certain leaders or pronouncing them for leadership positions, but hardly speak about the injustices young people are subjected to on a daily basis,” said Mokako.
In response, Mkhize said any NEC member who says “something that will make society doubt the Youth League” must equally speak about what he has done to remedy that which he is speaking out about.
Mokako said he was merely expressing known views.
“The criticism is not sudden, it has been there both at formal gatherings of the organisation and in my personal Facebook page. I have been consistent.
“These are the voices of young people, in corridors, in the streets and in formal meetings,” he added.
Mokako said the incoming leadership must build a campaigning organisation that will be at the forefront in the fight against unemployment, high HIV infection rates among young people and racism and discrimination against young professionals in corporate spaces.